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The town of Andeli lies on the little river Gambon a mile away, beyond the cultivated land (Cultura) which breaks the line of lofty chalk cliffs on the right bank of the Seine.1 Richard proceeded to strengthen this strip of ground: a new town was laid out on the river, immediately opposite the isle, and just under the projection of cliff known as the Rock of Andeli; the two small streams by which the Gambon enters the river were diverted to enclose this town, and were checked sufficiently to allow its walls and earthworks to act as a dam; hence the lowest part of the valley, between the old and the new town, was turned into a pool, while the rest of the Cultura was occupied by the new town and a number of scattered buildings, ditches and defences (hericones). The pool was probably banked in or intersected by a causeway which connected the two towns. The island and the new town (the present Petit Andelys) must thus have been very impressive. The spectator on the Rock saw the road from Tosny on the far side of the Seine protected by ramparts;s it passed by a series of bridges over the arms of the river and the long island of Gardon to the Isle; and the Isle, with its wall, tower, and palace, was in turn bound by another bridge to the new town; beyond the town lay the valley with its wide deep pool; ‘and from the pool two streams, each of which might be called a river, flowed into the Seine in front of either entrance of the bourg'; and over both streams the king had built bridges, and at the entrances and round about were 'towers of stone and wood, and in the spaces between were battlements and loopholes for the shot of the crossbows.'5

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The whole series of defences was further protected by a stockade built across the river on the south side a work

1. Stapleton, II, xli.

2. Rot. Scacc., ii, 309.

3, Ibid.

4. The bridge over the Gambon, and the bridge Makade.

5. William the Breton, i, 208-9. I have adopted Stapleton's translation. (II, xlii.)

rightly regarded, if we consider the strength and depth of the current, as one of the most marvellous features of these operations. The stockade and the battlements of the town were connected with the outlying works on the Rock; and above these rose Château-Gaillard.

By the end of 1198 the valley of the Seine from Pont de l'Arche to the forest of Andeli had become a hive of soldiers and workmen, with Château-Gaillard, clearly visible to the French from their castle of Gaillon, in the centre. Richard had bought out the monks of Jumièges at Pont de l'Arché,1 just as he had bought out the archbishop at Andeli. Between the two places the river had been bridged at Portjoie, where there was a royal residence.2 An advance work, called in consequence Boutavant 3-had been erected upon an island above the isle of Andeli, opposite Tosny. The lord of Tosny was lent £100 for the defence of his house, and on the east bank of the river, south of Château-Gaillard, Cléry and perhaps other places had been fortified.5 Thus the Norman Vexin, so far as it was still retained by the Normans, found a new centre in Château-Gaillard, and the outlying fortresses in the valley of the Epte were no longer isolated.

The works at Andeli had been in charge of three clerks, Sawale or Sewal son of Henry, Robert son of Hermer, and Matthew son of Enard. Little can be discovered of these men, whose names appear here and there in the

1. Continuator of Robert of Torigni in Histor. de France, xviii, 340; Stapleton, II, clxii. The manor of Conteville was granted in exchange. King John revoked the exchange.

2. Rot. Scacc., ii, 483, 485.

3. On the position of Boutavant, see Coutil, p. 79; Cartellieri, iii, 140. A place of the same name, once dominated by a castle, exists in Ireland between Charleville and Mallow, on the road from Cork to Limerick. See Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, s. v. Butteavant.

4. Rot. Norm., 74. Ducal soldiers occupied Tosny in 1198 (Rot. Scacc., ii, 310).

5. Rot. Scacc., ii, 310, Coutil, p. 77.

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records of John's reign. Sawale farmed the issues of the Vexin, and was probably chief of the three;1 he also seems to have held a serjeanty in Northumberland.2 Robert, son of Hermer, was afterwards in charge of works at Vaudreuil, and was one of John's bailiffs there.3 Matthew, son of Enard, had charge in 1198 of the prise of ships taken in war, and in 1202 was promised a prebend at Angers. They had been entrusted during 1197-8 with the vast sum of £48,878. 13s. 8d., of which £15,000 odd had come direct from the Norman bailiwicks, over £18,000 from the royal camera, and £5,600 from the treasury at Caen. The remainder was made up of the profits of prises and booty, ransoms, and the advances of money changers." The money had been partly spent in wages and in works at places so far afield in the Vexin as Longchamp, Dangu, Gamaches; also in local operations at Cléry and Boutavant; but by far the greater part had gone to defray the cost of labour and material at the Isle and Château-Gaillard. 7

The Isle of Andeli was a favourite residence of Richard's during the last two years of his life. It is clear that he personally directed the building operations around and upon the Rock, and if contemporary evidence did not exist,

.1. Rot. Scacc., ii, 311.

2. Inquisitions of John's reign in Red Book, ii, 564: "Sewale filius Henrici, terram per serjanteriam custodiendi placita coronae."

3. Rot. Norm., 55, 75, 82. References to Robert also in Rot. de Lib., 100; Rot. Pat 35.

4. Rot. Scacc., ii, 311.

5. Rot. Pat., 7b; if the Matthew son of Everd, king's clerk, there mentioned, be the same.

6. Rot. Scacc., ii, 309.

7. I add the relevant part of this most important statement cf accounts in a note at the end of this chapter. English readers will find a good account of Château-Gaillard, based upon Deville's Histoire du Château-Gaillard (Rouen, 1829), in the second volume of Miss Norgate's Angevin Kings. Besides Deville, see also Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française, and the essays mentioned in the

next note.

the magnificent ruins of Château-Gaillard would still afford sufficient proof that he concentrated all his energy, skill and experience upon the work. It would doubtless be rash to argue that all the characteristic details of the buildings on the Rock were first developed by Richard and were entirely due to his study of the Latin fortresses in Syria; but it is quite obvious that Château-Gaillard marks a turning point in the history of western fortification; and it is incredible that Richard did not profit by his experiences as a Crusader. Apart from the boldness of the work as a whole, the structure of the elliptical citadel with its series of curvilinear bosses,2 and of the circular keep with its wedge-like machicolation, reveals a profound practical knowledge of fortification. The scientific use of military engines and other methods of attack had been brought in this age to such perfection that the existence beneath the walls of a single 'dead angle,' or spot which could not be reached by missiles, might be the cause of disaster. The structure of citadel and keep, and to a less degree of the triangular advance work was designed to remove this defect, inevitable in a rectilinear fortress; and it was combined with a long sloping base

1. M. Dieulafoy, Le Château-Gaillard et l'architecture militaire au xiiie siècle in the mémoires of the Academie des inscriptions et belleslettres, 1898, vol. xxxvi, part i, pp. 325-386; and the remarks of Coutil, op. cit., pp. 68, 72-75.

2. This enclosing wall of the inner court is the distinctive feature of the castle. ‘It is preceded,' in the words of M. Dieulafoy, 'by a fossé cut almost vertically out of the rock, and it consists of a chaplet of which towers, or segments of circles on a chord of about three metres, are united by strips of wall nearly a metre in width. Its tracé, elliptical in form, and its carefully conceived profils show profound knowledge. No angle mort, nor secteur privé de projectiles is to be found; the approaches and the fossé are covered by the fire of the garrison right up to the foot of the wall, and no sapper could touch any point in towers or walls, provided that the fortress was under the direction of an experienced commander' (p. 330).

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(talus) from which the projectiles hurled from above would ricochet with increased force. It has been pointed out by M. Dieulafoy that Philip Augustus was finally successful in the siege of the castle because he availed himself of the single defect in its scheme of defences. This defect was the protection afforded to the besiegers by the stone bridge which connected the citadel or second court with the outer court.

No Syrian castle combined all the characteristics of Château-Gaillard. Some of them may be found in other western fortresses of this date; for example, in Pons, Etampes, Provins, Issoudun, La Roche Guyon, Ghent. Nor could anyone who has stood before his rival's work at Angers or Gisors claim for Richard a monopoly of knowledge; indeed by his patience and subtlety Philip was the better engineer of the two. Yet we must regard Richard's wars in Normandy as a continuation of his fights as a Crusader. He was the chief soldier of his age; we may be sure that during the few years of his reign the unity of the soldier's life was never broken, and that his best talk was heard in the company of Mercadier the Brabançon or Master Ivo the Balistarius. He brought back with him from the east men who had been trained in Syria. Franks born in Syria, one of them from Nazareth, were among his artillerymen; indeed, there is good evidence that he had brought back a band of Saracens to fight for him. We are told that Greek fire-that terrible explosive was used during these wars, and if information

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1. Ibid., 334.

2. "Petro de Tanentonne et Martino de Nazareth et sociis eorum Arbalistariis liiij li. per breve Regis" (Rot. Scacc., ii, 302). Cf. the reference to a Baldoin of Jerusalem (ibid, ii, 301).

3. I have discussed the evidence in the Scottish Historical Review for October, 1910, p. 104. The references are to Rot. Scacc., i, 221; ii, 301; compared with text D. of the Histoire d'Héracles in the Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux, ii, 196.

4. In 1195, when the French destroyed Dieppe (Howden, iii, 304).

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